Last Night
by DaemonCat
Summary: (Hero fic) The last night for Broken Sword and Snow before Snow's duel with Nameless. Complete.
1. To argue

Last Night

_This is dedicated to Ben-sen-chan and my Inu-chan and Jenni and Jen and Kwan and all my reviewers and everyone who will review me in future and LOOK BEN NO YAOI!_

_It's just short and sweet, leading up to a bit of a tender moment between Snow and Broken Sword. I got the idea for this while watching the film. There are no way enough Hero fics out there.  
__  
_Disclaimer: They all belong to their owners. I am not one of them. Sniff.

-

"As long as you live, you'll prevent him from killing the king of Qin!" spat Snow mockingly. "Spare me! I can't see why you think so much of him. He's just a ruthless killer who deserves to die like all the rest."

Broken Sword didn't move. "I've already explained myself to you, so please let it go," he said patiently.

She glared at him, every bit as cold as her name. He couldn't help but admire the proud lines of her face, the exquisite eyelashes that served to make her face as alluring or ice-deadly as she wished. Even now, he desired her. "I don't believe it," she flashed. "I refuse to believe it! You're just jealous because the nameless warrior will succeed where you failed. If that is the case," she added, with a curl of her lip, "you should have tried harder when you had the chance. Did you really believe that you were the only one who could carry it out?"

He flinched inadvertently as she launched arrow after arrow at him, each one hitting the mark. "I'm sorry you don't believe me," he said finally, his voice quiet and almost sad. "I can't convince you, can I? I must go; I have business to attend to." With a flourish of his simple white robe, he exited, swiftly and steadily.

For anything else, any other cause, he would have given in to her, his proud, beautiful falcon of a lover who, even though she lashed out to hurt him again and again, seemingly unaware of her own strength, he loved with all of his soul. But not this time. And it was tearing him apart. "He is the only one who can unite our nation," he had tried to explain to her, but she couldn't see that far. All she could see was a wasted opportunity, an act of cowardice, as he let the man go amid fluttering jade-green banners. She didn't understand his gentle reasoning.

Broken Sword strode through corridors and rooms, all simple clean wood and minimualist furniture, a long desk here or there, maybe a wall hanging in red or black, but little else. To an outsider they would have looked merely spartan, but to Broken Sword and Snow and all the other students at the calligraphy school, they were full of warmth and character, and the light that filtered through the thin wood panels shone a tan glow on everything, and at night the lamplight and candlelight cast their world into autumn. He sighed to release his inner worries and tension.

He couldn't worry. There was work to be done, a wall hanging he had been commissioned to do by Nameless, as a favour. Broken Sword suspected it was just a detail in whatever cover story he would come up with, but he would do this favour anyway; he thought he liked the man, and he loved calligraphy. He smiled to himself. Any excuse.

-

Snow sat on her own, still where her lover had left her. She glowered, her rage simmering slowly. Why would he not just accept that she was right? The king of Qin had committed many atrocities with his armies across the seven states. Not even Broken Sword could deny that. He told her that if he died many would die in the continuing wars between the states. She had asked him how many would die if he united the country. He admitted that the death toll would be high. "Death is death," she'd snapped at him. "Many will die if we kill him, many will die if we don't. What's one more or less man to the world? Nothing!" He'd just shook his head. She was furious with him still. "Fool," she muttered, and there was no one to hear her but the empty air.

-

He wrote. The long brush an extension of his arm, an extension of his soul. The red ink tracing the path of his thoughts in the rigid constraints of the Chinese character. 'Sword' was the character Nameless had asked him to write, an eight-foot scroll. The twentieth of nineteen ways of forming the character. A brilliant challenge, one that he hadn't seen the like of in years. He was told to pour his technique and himself into the wall hanging. So be it.

The brush travelled across the rough paper with a whispering hiss, the ink leaving an imperfectly lovely trail. The sound emptied his mind, and his whole body swayed and moved with each stroke as he unleashed his mind into the challenge.

Life would unfold as it would unfold. Why couldn't she realise that? She was always so tense, so angry. Broken Sword didn't know what she was trying to prove. But all thoughts melted into his liquid, easy movements as the character took shape beneath his artist's brush.

The world was at peace.

-

_So that's the beginning. More will follow soon, please review because I went to all the bother of writing it. puppydog eyes_


	2. To reflect

_I'm sorry for the damn shortness... it just felt like a chapter-end... forgive me? Review me too.  
  
Disclaimer: -insert text which means I own nobody here-_  
---  
"Come to bed, love," murmured Broken Sword to his lover.  
  
She sat still where he had left her, and now the light was fading into mellow gold. She was no longer angry at him, only thoughtful, though what she was thinking about, he couldn't tell. Her eyes were wide and distracted, her expression just a thin layer of ice which concealed her true face. His low voice raised the hair on her neck, but she willed herself not to show it. No weakness. She ignored him. Snow blinked slowly, holding her eyes closed and preserving her solitude for almost a second before acknowledging his presence. He was staring at her, those feral eyes boring into her.  
  
Feral eyes. She was the feral one, the one with the untameable temper and wild rages. He was as meek as a child when he wasn't fighting. And she had been given the countenance of a lady,  
while he looked as though he had come straight from one of the old legends.  
  
He didn't repeat the question; he knew she had heard. Instead he made his gaze questioning.  
She turned her own glittering eyes away from him again, demure she seemed, as innocent as a maiden. "You know I never make love the night before working," she replied quietly, referring to the duel she was to fight with Nameless.  
  
"I know." So gentle.  
  
Why so tender towards her? She had hurt him deliberately earlier, she knew that. Yet he just let it flow away like water congealing in perfect jewelled drops on a blade, before shivering across the steel to fall from it completely, leaving only the tiniest trace of a last kiss. She didn't know why it infuriated her so. Somewhere inside her she wanted him to shout and rage at her as she did to him. She wanted him to be angry. She wanted him to show that it mattered when she sent her barbed words at his heart. That he loved her enough to be hurt by her.  
  
He continued. "It will be enough just to be together, for this last night." _The last night before our work will be done, perhaps. Yours or mine, no one knows. Maybe even our last night together. Nameless said he wouldn't kill you, and I suppose I should trust him, but I can't help thinking it should be me.  
  
_Unconsciously his hand felt under his simple robe the still-throbbing wound. _You know me so well_, he thought ruefully. _Much better than I know you. Too naive to see it coming. I didn't think you'd dare_. He smiled. Such a tigress, his love.  
  
Broken Sword reached down a hand to her, and she looked at it, confused for a second. Then she tentatively put her own cold hand into it. Relief flooded through his body. He was the only one she'd reach up to, and that rare. He led her, silent and cold and not fighting him. She walked as if in a dream. He turned back to face her, and she allowed him one brief smile.  
  
So this was why she loved him.  
---

_More is on its way. Promise. It'll be the last. It'll also be longer._


	3. To reconcile

_A/N: And so we come to the close of our little tableau. I can only hope that you enjoyed it, you readers, and that it was a fitting and sufficient tribute to those to whom I dedicate it. And Ben-sen-chan, this is for you.  
_  
---  
  
The bed was neither warm nor cold, at first. The thin silky covering seemed to have no temperature, only the texture which caressed the two beneath it. But soon enough, the inevitable and passionate heat of their bodies spread in almost-tangible waves. Broken Sword closed his eyes with a slight smile. Heaven, for him, to share his bed. Beautiful, the unmistakeable yet indescribable feeling of skin against skin. Perfect, the sight of her, naked under the sheet. The curve of her back white and strangely eloquent, her raven hair laying so naturally, over her shoulder and across the pillow, tickling his nose. So natural, yet she looked like a sculpture,  
something cold and carved with the utmost precision and art.  
  
She always slept facing away from him. He didn't mind, only moulded his body to hers, embracing almost without touch. It was enough for her to know he was at her back, a steady, constant presence with a soft voice and poetic eyes full of soul and animal-feeling. She needed little more of him, and he knew it, and it was all right between them this way. More than all right.  
  
She stirred lightly, deeply asleep. What was she dreaming about? About tomorrow? About him? There was no way he could know, and she'd never tell him, not in a thousand years. Fiercely private, his love. She shared only what she wished to share with him, with anyone.  
  
He shifted too, only for his eyes to widen in unexpected pain. His long artist's fingers traced the line of the wound she had inflicted without hesitation, not even the smallest apology, not even the shadow of a tear when she watched him writhe, wrestling with the agony. Her only offering was a little anxiety over whether she had cut him too deep, nothing for the pain she had put him in. Merciless. That was what some said of her. Maybe it was even true. He didn't care. He loved her anyway. He loved that she was so passionate at times, so ambitious. She had wounded him to make sure he couldn't fight with Nameless. This was her protection. A little twisted perhaps,  
but he thought he understood.  
  
But she didn't understand him.  
  
She had never understood him really. Their first meeting had been completely on her terms, and she liked what she saw of him. What had she seen of him? He didn't know. She had never told him, not even mentioned it before. One day, he promised himself. One day, with patience and love and unwavering silent loyalty, she would understand. She may taunt him, she may deride him, she may even leave him, but she would understand.  
  
"How can I tell you I love you?" he asked in a whisper to the sleeping Snow. "How do I put it to you when you only hear my weakness? Love is not a weakness. There is no shame in love."  
  
She didn't even move in acknowledgement, but then, he hadn't expected her to. To be honest, he didn't want her to. She'd only laugh. He ran an outstretched finger along the smooth skin of her back, and she shivered. He smiled. He tried a different pattern. Again, she reacted, shuddering in her sleep. He paused. _If only I had a calligraphy brush with me now_, he thought ruefully. No matter.  
  
He began to write, tracing the lines of the Chinese characters he knew so well. After a while she settled again, only twitching occasionally when his touch was too light or too quick, or when his fingers brushed a certain spot on her spine, about halfway down, where it curved inwards. He made a mental note of the exect location with a smile.  
  
Still he wrote. "_No matter where you go, or what you do to me, I will follow you. I will forever be here, as I am now, protecting your back, and you don't have to look at me or talk to me, or even tell me you love me, because it doesn't matter_."  
  
He felt the blue veil of sleep over him, and after one last long look at his sleeping lover, his eyes closed slowly. He prayed that all her sleep be as untroubled as this night. He dreamed of shining silver blades flecked with water, of Flying Snow and of calligraphy brushes, pregnant with ink, on rice paper.  
  
That was their last night together.

---

_Thanks for reading, and reviews are your friend. _


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